Community comes together to help with car accident

A scary scene on Saturday night saw Strathmore residents come together to help a man in his time of need.

Megan Nimchuk and Shawn Kisling were driving down Highway 817 when they noticed a serious car accident and an injured man walking around in a daze.

"We were just driving along the highway, we noticed that the vehicle had recently just flipped because the oil was still burning from the engine, and we saw the occupant kind of stumbling around so we pulled a u-turn and stopped and Shawn ran out to the individual and I called 9-1-1," Nimchuk said.

The victim appeared to have suffered serious injuries, and was in shock when Kisling and Nimchuk were assisting him. They said their focus was getting the victim away from the car, as there was a worry that it could explode given the burning oil, and once that was done Nimchuk said they were giving medical care while they were waiting for first responders to arrive.

"There was a volunteer firemen that was on the scene as well, so once we were able to get the occupant on the ground because he was quite disoriented, in shock, so we had to get him to lay down. Once we were able to get him to lay down the volunteer firemen just helped c-spine the entire time to ensure that his neck was stable."

Nimchuk said it took around 25-30 minutes for first responders like the RCMP and Wheatland County Fire Department to arrive, and STARS was later on the scene.

"I was just talking to EMS and ensuring that the occupant didn't lose full consciousness and still was breathing. Some of the instructions that were given, we had to lift his chin to make sure his airway was clear, and the occupant was in and out of consciousness the whole time we were on the phone, but he was visibly breathing and so there wasn't a whole lot of instructions given but she had to stay on the line with me until a first responder arrived."

It was very fortunate that the community members available were all well equipped to handle this crisis. Nimchuk is a member of the military, Kisling has industrial first aid training and the volunteer fireman also has training to handle situations like this

"When you spend 13 years in the military, plus military experience before that, plus working in crisis situations regularly in my civilian job, I guess I just learned along the way that freaking out isn't really going to help the situation."

Nimchuk added that she heard there were three accidents in that same spot over the last seven months.

At press time, the RCMP, Wheatland County Fire Services and STARS were all unavailable for comment.

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